Dolphy

MANILA, Philippines—All is fair in love and politics—or at least the lone woman candidate for vice president seems to think so.

The Nacionalista Party’s (NP) Loren Legarda, a self-proclaimed champion of women’s rights, is keeping her hands off the decision of NP presidential candidate Manuel Villar to seek the endorsement of three men known to have colorful histories with women.

At a forum Tuesday organized by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) and featuring the vice presidential candidates, Legarda was asked what she had to say about Villar’s three popular endorsers—boxing champion Manny Pacquiao, comedian Dolphy and TV host Willie Revillame.

Pacquiao, a married man, was recently embroiled in a controversy over a rumored affair with a starlet. Dolphy has children with a number of women. Revillame, who’s been married several times, was accused by his ex-wife Floralice Almoro of being violent toward her and their son.

Replied Legarda: “Who am I to judge? I do not know their personal lives. They are the endorsers chosen by my presidential candidate. Who’s endorsing me is a smaller celebrity, Sarah Geronimo. She believes in my advocacy for women and the environment. Whoever the endorsers my presidential candidate got, I respect that.”

Building a country

Carefully choosing her words, Legarda added: “As for the alleged womanizing, I am not in a position to judge that unless I have private knowledge of the alleged womanizing.”

When it was pointed out to her that Dolphy had acknowledged fathering children with various women, she reiterated that she was leaving it to Villar to choose his endorsers: “If my presidential candidate is comfortable about that, I respect his decision.”
But Msgr. Pedro Quitorio, the CBCP media director, said the Church frowned on the practice of seeking endorsements from celebrities with questionable backgrounds.

“We are building a country, not a candidate. If we keep in mind that we’re building a country, we won’t do that,” he said.

According to Quitorio, endorsers are people whom others can emulate, and that logically, the candidate’s choice of endorsers reflects on his life.

“Civil society and the Church society say that people should choose candidates who have a well-rounded life. If they say that, then the same should apply to the endorsers as well. Why select a person who is immoral if our goal is to build a country?” he said.

Morality

The other vice presidential candidates weighed in on the issue.

Bagumbayan’s Bayani Fernando said it was not a good thing to get endorsers with questionable backgrounds.

“The morality of the person should be looked at, and we should not make an example out of a bad thing,” Fernando said.

Dominador Chipeco of Ang Kapatiran said a candidate would not need endorsers if he had a principled platform of governance.

“If [the platform] is desirable to the people, the voters will accept that even without the backing of endorsers. The other side of it is that those who use endorsers just prove that their platforms are unclear or their principles are lacking, which is why they have to use the popularity of endorsers,” he said.

Chipeco said his party had no money to pay for endorsements and was just relying on its own message, which, he added, had been welcomed by its audience.

Kilusang Bagong Lipunan’s Jay Sonza said the most effective endorsement was coming from the people that he had talked with.

Perfecto Yasay of Bangon Pilipinas said the practice of seeking big-name endorsers should be stopped because it made the elections only a matter of money and popularity.

He warned that with the endorsements, voters were no longer compelled to scrutinize the candidates’ background.

Generalities

At the same forum, Caloocan Bishop Deogracias Iñiguez said the vice presidential candidates appeared not to be angry at those stealing from the public coffers.

Iñiguez, who chairs the CBCP public affairs office, told reporters that he was expecting stronger statements from the candidates regarding graft and corruption.

“[Their responses were] too general. I was expecting that they would say they are angry at the grafters and corrupters of our government in the past and in the present,” he said.

Iñiguez expressed hope that the candidates would at least be driven to implement measures to curb anomalous activities.

He said even grafters would give answers identical to those of the candidates. But he acknowledged that the time limit imposed on the latter might have prevented them from elaborating on their stand.

To Iñiguez’s question of what the candidates would do to those found involved in graft and corruption, Legarda said any kind of corruption should be stamped out through leadership by example and a cleanup of the bureaucracy.

She said the amount lost to corruption could fund many social services.

Legarda also said the judicial process should be speeded up, and that prisons should be enlarged to hold all those who would be convicted of graft and corruption.

Biggest setback

Yasay said the quick pardon of deposed leader and convicted plunderer Joseph Estrada was the biggest setback in the fight against corruption.

He said the guilty should be brought to justice.

Chipeco said corruption had long been present in the government, and that this was why the Office of the Ombudsman was put up.

He said the problem was that it was the Senate investigating questionable practices, and that those found liable were not being sent to jail.

Fernando said the justice system should be made to work, and that inquiries should be left to the police, and not to Congress.

Sonza said those who involved in wrongdoing should be brought to justice, and that even those sorry for their sins should be held accountable first.

He said they appeared to be more connected to what’s happening on the ground.

Getting to know you

The CBCP is hosting the series of forums to allow the candidates to air their views on agrarian reform, mining, ancestral lands, the fisheries law, and other concerns of farmers, fisherfolk, indigenous people and women.

For the next forum, the CBCP has invited the presidential candidates. But so far, only three—Eddie Villanueva of Bangon Pilipinas, John Carlos de los Reyes of Ang Kapatiran and Richard Gordon of Bagumbayan—have confirmed attendance.

The front-runner, Benigno Aquino III of the Liberal Party, would only commit to attending the forum if Villar, his closest rival, would also be present, according to a source privy to the preparations for the event.

There’s an axiom in advertising that says, a great campaign can expose a bad product faster — because it persuades people to try the product sooner and to find out how bad it is. It looks like this axiom is being proven true in the case of would-be-president-of-the-poor Manny Villar.

One of my closest friends in advertising created Villar’s OFW commercials when he was just beginning to water the seeds of his presidential campaign. Apparently, the creative strategy worked, because Villar began to close the gap with VP Noli de Castro who, at the time, appeared to be formidable as a “presidentiable” in all the public opinion surveys.

But on one of my visits to Manila, I learned that my pal had quit on Villar. Apparently, he didn’t appreciate the way Villar had hired a host of creative consultants and political advisers, armed with a variety of bright ideas that violated the cardinal rule for an effective campaign, namely, single-mindedness.

At any rate, Villar apparently listened to his new creative brain trust and, together, they came up with some very impressive commercials, based on some very bold claims, expressed in very memorable language.

To solidify Villar’s positioning as the “champion of the poor,” they concocted the line, “Nanggaling sa hirap. Tumutulong sa mahihirap.” (From the poor. Helping the poor.)

To portray him as the role model for the upward-striving masses, they attributed his rise “from poor boy to billionaire” to “Sipag at Tiyaga.” Industriousness and diligence. Yes, indeed, what better formula for success?

And to really, truly, effectively, dramatically, and memorably drive home the point, they created the gems: “Nakaligo ka na ba sa dagat ng basura?” (Have you ever bathed in a sea of garbage?) and “Nakaranas na ba kayong…mamatayan ng kapatid dahil wala kang perang pampagamot, wala ka namang magawa?” (Have you experienced the death of a sibling because you had no money for medicine and you could do nothing about it?”

No soap opera writer could have spun greater tearjerkers.

And that was not all. Armed with such fantastic creatives, Villar decided to make sure that every man, woman, and child in every corner of the archipelago would have an opportunity to see these products of communications and creative brilliance.

“Pour it on,” Villar must have ordered his media buyers. “Saturate Wowwowwee. Tell Revillame to raffle off houses and bundles of cash. Shoot a Dolphy testimonial. Ask Pacquiao to sing a jingle.”

And Villar must have added: “And do a pool of commercials starring me — the poor boy who made good — surrounded by the people I love. The POOR!!!”

Strangely, the one campaign theme that Villar’s creative and political consultants did not touch was the most obvious, for someone desiring to replace Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo: what he would do about the much-reviled Arroyo upon assuming office. While his rivals all vowed to throw the book at her, Villar said nary a nasty word.

And so, the Villar armada blitzed the media. And, as expected, his poll numbers went up and up and up until he came up to a statistical dead heat with Noynoy Aquino.

But then, in the cruelest traditions of Murphy’s law (If something can go wrong, it will), things began to unravel.

Villar’s Senate colleagues pursued accusations against him of using his power and influence as speaker of the House of Representatives and as Senate president to provide undue advantages to his business interests. Among others, the C-5 extension public works project translated into billions drained from the national coffers and poured into Villar’s bank account.

Some nasty punster then came up with an alternative to “Sipag at Tiyaga” — “C5 at Taga.” The last word being a Tagalog idiom for an illicit profit.

Then other punsters went to town, creating funny versions of his “bathing in garbage” story and the one about being so poor, his brother died from lack of medicine.

Some digging into Villar’s background exposed these stories as the product of a copywriter’s over-imaginative mind. That, by itself, violated a cardinal rule in advertising: Make sure your puffery can be supported by facts.

Then stories of land-grabbing and questionable get-rich-quick schemes began to surface. And all Villar and his apologists could do was to dismiss the accusations as “politically motivated.”

And for the coup de grace, another punster added two and two together — namely, Villar and Arroyo — and concocted the name, Villarroyo. And for the final flourish, they changed his name to Money. MONEY VILLARROYO.

As if that was not enough, the law of unintended consequences has come into play. Villar’s billions in media spending has begun to bother the simple minded masses. “How does he expect to recoup all of that investment???” they have now begun to ask.

If you know something about communications jujitsu or the technique of using your opponents strength against him, then you must agree that this is exactly what has been inflicted on Manny Villar.

The latest SWS survey tells us that Noynoy Aquino, who has not been spending as much as Villar, has surged ahead with a 9-point spread, caused mainly by a significant dive in Villar’s poll ratings. Another survey, this time by Manila Standard, shows an even bigger spread of Aquino: 13 points.

In the face of all these, what are Villar’s options?

OPTION ONE: Fire his creative brain trust. In fact, burn them on a stake for not allowing facts to get in the way of their fiction.

The trouble with that is, Villar can’t be sure that the replacement will be better. In fact, at this stage of the campaign, all the creative brains-for-hire in Manila are already busy on the campaigns of other candidates.

OPTION TWO: Fire the columnists, newscasters, and commentators in the Villar payroll. Apparently, these folks have lost all credibility and anything they say FOR Villar is taken AGAINST him by the public.

The trouble with that is, these AC-DC journalists (attack-and-collect, defend-and-collect) will probably be merrily writing for another batch of presidential candidates the next day. Maybe, Villar should just pay them to STOP WRITING and STOP TALKING.

OPTION THREE: Ressurect Garci and Lintang Bedol and bring back the Hamburjer Man into the Comelec.

Of course, there is a FOURTH OPTION, which Villar may not fully appreciate. And this is the possibility that Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo may have been stringing him along and really has no intentions of handing over the presidency to him. There is a Tagalog phrase for that: “Ginigisa sa sariling mantika.” (Frying him in his own lard).

Meanwhile, to revive his spirits, Villar may want to seek the counsel of his Holiness Mike Velarde, who could advise him in impeccable English: “Strong your heart, for in the long of time, you will success!”

The ProPinoy Project

The ProPinoy Project is a Global Community Center for all things Pinoy, to connect Filipinos at home and abroad by creating a space for ideas, trends and analyses about the Philippines and the global Pinoy community to inspire informed discussion and transformative action.

The ProPinoy Project is a Global Community Center for all things Pinoy, to connect Filipinos at home and abroad by creating a space for ideas, trends and analyses about the Philippines and the global Pinoy community to inspire informed discussion and transformative action.